I nod. “Uh . . . right.”
And then suddenly Mark is talking incredibly fast, saying absolutely nothing . . . and he does not stop:
“Ha! Okay. So we both know what we’re doing now. But seriously: doesn’t it seem like everyone is always asking you what comes next? Like — okay, get this: when I was in grade school, they asked all the kids what they wanted to be, and I told them that I wanted to be — get this — a Pokémon Trainer. So the teacher tells me, no, that isn’t something you can be, so I thought for a while and then I told her that I wanted to be a zookeeper. Because . . . I think I had just been to the zoo, and that seemed like it was close enough to a Pokémon Trainer. Or something! Ha!
“Anyway. My point is that people are always asking you, like, what you want to be in the future. And most people don’t know — like, there’s going to be school, and then some kind of . . . of . . . vaguely defined period of job hunting or whatever. And then you have a job, and then you start work, and then you work for fifty years, or whatever, and then maybe if you’re lucky you’ll have a few years to do what you want before you die. Right? So for the longest time I was just trying to work this out in my head. Because I didn’t want that like everybody else. So whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be after that, I just said zookeeper, for the longest time. You know?”
I have absolutely no idea what he is getting at . . . but I feel myself nodding anyway.
“What I actually want is to not have to work all the time. Like, right now. While I’m young. I want to be able to . . . I don’t know, go see the aurora borealis in Iceland if I want to. Just pick up and go, just like that. If I want. Or that place in Cambodia with . . . that place, with all the green temples and stuff.”
“Angkor Wat?”
“Angkor Wat! Yes!” he says, grinning like a maniac. “That’s it! So then I figured it out, Veronica: why should I have to waste my future, working all the time for some other guy, helping him to get his dreams, when I could just make my own dreams come true? Seeing the world . . . or, you know, making my music. DJ more. Not just at the student union, but actually at real actual clubs. Ibiza, um . . . Berlin. Everywhere. And so that’s when I figured it out. How to do it. What I have to do.”
“What?” I ask, surprising myself at just how much I actually want to hear the answer.
“I need to have my own company! Make something and sell it all over the place! Online, or whatever. Like my friend — my friend does that . . . thing with the hooks. Crochet. And she was making these custom crochet iPhone cases and selling them on some website called Etsy last summer. She made like eight hundred dollars.”
Mark stops walking and talking suddenly, and he turns to take my other hand in his, and he’s looking into my eyes like he’s trying to see if I understand.
His smile is so incredibly, impossibly pure . . . and I realize despite myself that his dumb enthusiasm is infectious. My smile makes Mark’s grin even bigger, and his breathing is excited and he is absolutely deadly serious about himself, and me, and now . . .
He leans in for a kiss.
His mouth is open a little too much and mine is closed, because I am absolutely not expecting it at all, but then I can feel my lips part, and he’s kissing me again — and now I am kissing him too, and his hand is on my face and my hands go to his chest, and I think for a moment I might push him away from me . . . but I don’t.
Finally his lips leave mine, and he takes a step backward.
“Whoa,” he says. “Wow.”
* * *
Mark lives in a tiny one-room efficiency over a bicycle repair shop.
There’s an elephant graveyard of mangled bicycle parts in front of it — tireless wheels, chainless Schwinns in various states of disrepair. We pick our way carefully over to the rusty wrought-iron stairs and begin our three-storey climb to Mark’s apartment.
“That guy is amazing — the bicycle guy,” says Mark, taking the stairs two at a time and pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “I have this folding Dahon bike and it needed a new pedal one time. That guy fixed it in like three hours, only charged me thirty bucks. He’s great.”
Mark opens the door of his apartment — or he tries to, anyway; the door only opens halfway, then bangs against the aforementioned Dahon. He gives it a kick with his boot, and I’m able to squeeze myself inside.
Mark clicks on a table lamp, and I get my first good look at the inside of his apartment. It’s a look I decide to call University Hodgepodge: it’s low-ceilinged and squarish, with a basic kitchenette and dining nook to one side of the entryway. I walk past into the smallish main living room/bedroom — it’s slightly larger than my current room in the Ocean-View, though not by much. To one side is a blue foam Ikea sofa covered by the frayed folds of what looks like a serape. On the other side of the room is a pressboard Ikea desk, with a sticker-covered laptop computer and a few piles of precariously-stacked schoolwork. The bed is a basic twin with a suspiciously neat-looking duvet; the walls above it are covered with black light posters, a dented SPEED LIMIT 55 sign, and what appears to be a long line of large black shark teeth.
Mark catches me eyeing the teeth. “Oh, hey — check this out,” he says, and I hear a click. The string glows to life, filling the apartment with a bright electric red. They aren’t teeth after all — they’re illuminated chili peppers.
“Ha! Sweet, right?” says Mark proudly. “My friend Steve used to work at Chili’s, and he stole these on his last day, just before he quit. They all totally knew it was him, and they called him a bunch of times . . . but they couldn’t prove anything.”
“Huh! Way to go Steve,” I say, staring at the chili peppers as I move to sit on the sofa.
“Yeah, that guy is crazy. Listen, though — do you want something to drink? I have . . . let’s see, I have PBR and . . . I have some vodka . . . and I have a little limeade.”
“Can I have the vodka and limeade?” I ask.
“Sure! I can do that — hold on for a moment, and I will make you a cocktail.”
Mark finds a glass and puts some vodka and ice in it, and then he splashes some juice into the glass and stirs it with a reasonably clean-looking fork.
“Stirred not shaken. For the lady,” he says, handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I taste it and it’s a little too strong, but it’s fine. Mark gets a PBR and cracks it open and clinks the can against my glass.
“Cheers!”
He takes a huge drink of PBR. I stare at him for a second — and then I shrug, taking a big drink from my vodka thing.
“Oh, hey — music,” says Mark. “Let me get some music up in here. Hold on.”
He turns on his stereo, then goes over to the laptop and clicks around until iTunes comes up, and soon we’re listening to the thumping beat of dance music for the second time that night.
“Do you like this? This is goa. Goa trance,” he says. “Actually, let me turn it down a bit — my neighbor can be a real asshole about noise,” he says, moving over to twist the knob on his stereo. I don’t like the music much, but then Mark starts to do a little dance in the middle of the floor and it distracts me. It’s not a very good dance, and he moves his arms way too much, but it makes me smile in spite of myself.
I take another gulp of my drink.
“This is an extremely difficult dance,” says Mark, “that I invented myself.”
I laugh. “Did you really?”
“Yes,” says Mark. “And I need to practice it every day, obviously. Still: I think you might be able to handle it.”
He holds out his arms and gestures for me to join him, so I put down my drink and I let him take my hands. I am not a very good dancer either, so I just put my hands on Mark’s waist and step back and forth while Mark does his thing. Then we get nearer to each other . . . and then Mark closes the gap between our lips and we are kissing again.
Mark’s glasses are too large and they bump up against the bridge of my nose, so I reach up and push them backwards onto his fo
rehead. He gets the message and takes them off and puts them onto his desk. A moment later and he’s pulling me to the bed, and I let him; he puts one hand on my back and one hand on the inner thigh of my right leg, and I let him do that as well.
He has a nervous energy about him, and maybe in another place and at another time I’d find it a little too much but for some reason it’s what I truly need right now. I fill myself with it; it feels warm, innocent. He kisses me again, and as he moves his mouth down my neck I sigh and let him topple me backwards against his pillow.
Mark’s fingers move to my top, and though he fumbles a bit it’s soon over my head. The sight of my breasts nestled in my bra seems to do something to him, and in a flash my shorts have joined my halter on the floor next to the bed.
“You are . . . my God — you are so, so beautiful,” he whispers, and the way he says it makes me know that it isn’t something he says a lot. I can really actually believe him. I don’t say a word — I just look in his big brown eyes, and I move my fingers lightly over the bulge in his pants.
He takes off his shirt as I unzip his fly, and I tug at his pants until he can’t stand it anymore and he helps me take them down the rest of the way. We’re both in our underwear now, and I get my first real look at his body. He’s thin, but not too thin, and in the red glow of the chili peppers his excited energy is actually somehow fun.
We let the moment hang in the air for a bit, and then our lips are crashing together again, and we’re kissing each other, deeply and uncontrollably, and I’m actually getting wet now, and Mark’s cock is stiffening quickly beneath his tight black boxer briefs.
Then our underwear is off and he’s on top of me, kissing my mouth and my face and my neck, one after the other after the other, and we’re young and our energy is raw and pure and incredibly sexual.
“Just a second,” he says, and he reaches over to the nightstand for a condom packet. He crinkles it in his nervous hands, and I watch him, and I’m smiling a bit as he struggles.
“Need help?” I ask.
“Ha!” he says. “I got this. I just need to . . . ”
He bites the corner of the foil and manages to get the condom out, and he places it over the hood of his penis and tries to get it unrolled for a few tense seconds.
And then a few more tense seconds . . .
Then I realize that we have a problem: the concentration of trying to unroll the condom over his cock is making him . . . well, wilt.
“Um,” Mark says, a note of embarrassment creeping into his voice a bit, “you know what? Do you think you could maybe use your mouth for a minute? Help me out?”
I force myself not to giggle as I sit up. “Sure,” I say, bending forward to take him into my mouth. He stiffens then, a bit awkwardly, as I slide him between the warmth of my lips. It doesn’t take much teasing on my part — I hear the pace of his breathing quicken instantly.
“Oh . . . that’s good . . . ”
Easy there, Tiger, I think, sliding him out of my mouth before he has a chance to erupt.
“That was amazing,” he breathes. “All right — let’s try this again.”
Mark gets another condom, and this time he manages to get it on. Then he’s on top of me again, I’m back on my back, and his hand is gentle against my face.
“Okay,” he says, his voice quiet. “Okay.”
Then he is inside me. The awkwardness is gone, his gentleness giving way to authority. He moves his hips, pushing in further and further now, and I put my hands on him to steady myself, to steady us both, and his speed increases with a needful insistence . . .
And then, quickly, too quickly, he comes.
“Whoa!” he says. “A little fast there. Sorry.”
“No,” I say, smiling. “It’s okay.”
“That was amazing, though!” he says, slowly sliding out of me. The absence there makes me feel suddenly more than a little disappointed.
“Actually, you know what?” he asks. “Hold on. Let me take care of you.”
Mark bends forward until his mouth meets the soft skin of my thigh. His kisses travel upward then, further and further, toward the waiting folds of my pussy, his attentions coming quick yet tenderly.
Then his lips are there, against my sex, his mouth and his tongue, and I feel my body twitch in sudden and uncontrollable spasms as he brings me at last to my shuddering orgasm.
* * *
After that Mark lays next to me. There is only one pillow and he gives it to me, and though I don’t like how my boobs hang when I’m on my side I put up with it because he’s a nice person and nice to be next to.
His goa trance is still going strong, though. Its muted thump is steady and incessant, and it makes the whole afterglow feel somehow . . . off.
“You know what?” Mark says, closing his eyes and yawning. “I have pancake stuff. For tomorrow. And there’s a little farmer’s market that opens early like three blocks away. I’ll bike over there and grab some blueberries. We’ll have blueberry pancakes!”
I find that I don’t want to think about food, about breakfast . . . but I have to say something, so I say Great.
In another moment Mark is asleep, and soon the sound of his snoring is mixing with the muffled low bass thumping from the stereo.
I pinch my eyes shut against the heavy red glow of the electric chili peppers, sigh deeply, and try to ignore the sound of Mark’s terrible iTunes playlist.
* * *
When I wake up Mark is gone, along with his folding bicycle, but there is a message from him on my phone:
> hey! going to get those blueberries lol
I go to the bathroom to freshen up and borrow a mouthful of mouthwash from the bottle on the sink. I dress as quick as I can.
I realize with a new morning clarity that I need to escape from this apartment as well — to get out as soon as I possibly can. I need to be away from Mark’s chili peppers, and the thumping generic bass of his endless goa . . . even away from the legendary blueberries that are supposedly on their way.
I’m out the door and down the stairs as quickly as my feet can take me. I walk until I reach a McDonald’s, and then I call a taxicab to pick me up.
> hey where are you?? are you ok
Oh, Mark. I don’t want to be mean to this perfectly nice and normal person who I am absolutely, definitely not going to sleep with ever again. Mark is as pure an example of a Mark as I have ever seen in my life, and this much I know: if I leave the door open for him, even just a little tiny bit of a crack, his Markishness will never let me move on.
I force myself to be direct.
> mark
> i like you
> and i love your cock, but i really hate your music.
I slip my phone into my bag and sip absently at a cup of nearly-hot coffee, and a few minutes later a taxi from LOS ANGELES TAXICAB pulls into the parking lot of the McDonald’s. I stand up and tip the rest of my drink into a formica and pressboard trashcan. Then I head back to the Ocean-View.
Chapter 17
I realize on the taxi ride that I do not have a plan. I have a hotel room and a suitcase full of clothes and some money . . . but that is not a plan. But what is the point of having a plan or a strategy if I don’t even know what I want?
I want . . .
I want to be deciding on dessert somewhere.
More than anything, I want to be at a fantastic seafood restaurant overlooking a sparkling blue ocean full of tanned surfers trying to catch decent waves. I want Baby on one side of the table, enthusing about seeing DiCaprio wearing sweatpants at a liquor store, and Rosco on the other side of the table saying something cutting about his side salad and whether or not the romaine has been rinsed properly, and . . .
Wait.
No.
More than anything, anything, I want those photos I saw to be some dark mistake. Or a joke. Or . . . something. I want there to be a logical explanation for what I saw on Xavier’s phone — an explanation that, when I hear it, will make me forget a
nd forgive.
I want to think Oh! Is that all? How silly of me. I should have figured it was something like that.
I want the impossible.
I get to the motel and I give the taxi driver a handful of bills, and then I slide my key into the doorknob of my room. I want Xavier to be sitting there, on the bed . . . and I want to not trust him at first, but as soon as I hear his amazing and totally convincing explanation I want to believe him one-hundred-percent and leap into his arms . . .
I turn on the lights.
Xavier is not there.
However, my toe nudges the edge of an envelope in the middle of the room, the one that somebody has slipped under the door. It stares up at me from the burgundy carpet in a way that seems somehow mocking.
It is marked with a single letter — V.
It’s enough to make me realize one thing, with a sudden chill of absolute certainty:
Xavier knows where I am.
I pick up the envelope, tear it open, and sit on the bed to read:
Veronica —
Oh good God, girl . . . what have you done to my poor phone?
Still, it isn’t hard to guess at your reasons for doing something like that.
Believe me when I tell you — part of me does understand. I am not the most forthcoming person, I suppose, and though looking through my phone was very much an invasion of privacy I suppose curiosity can sometimes get the better of anyone.
You looked where you looked, and you saw what you saw. And while you may say to yourself, “my God, what is wrong with this person,” perhaps you should also ask yourself a couple of questions. Why would you destroy a priceless piece of my company’s research? Why would you see fit to hit the road before even giving me the courtesy of hearing me out?
When you are ready to give me that opportunity — well, you know where I live. Otherwise, this will be the last time that you hear from me.
In any case, do not be alarmed about my knowing your whereabouts, Veronica. I assure you, there is very much a difference between looking for someone and knowing where they are. If you truly want your freedom from me, then you may have it.
More Than A Maybe Page 20
